Thursday, October 15, 2009

Harris Decima

Another poll, with a smaller gap than other recent findings. Harris Decima two week sample shows little change from their last release a month ago:

The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey put the Tories at 35 per cent nationally, compared with 28 per cent for the Liberals.

The NDP was at 15 per cent, while the Greens and Bloc Quebecois were tied at 10 per cent.

No pdf release- god forbid Canadian Press let readers see the entire poll, much better to tease with partial releases that don't even bother to give certain parties the benefit of an actual number (NDP in Ontario, who knows?) That annoyance aside, the last HD release a month ago had it 34% Con, 30% Lib, 15% NDP, Green 10%. Not a terrific change really, although the trend is similar to other outfits. HD is notorious for showing small changes, their methodology tends to counter large movement poll to poll. I'd be curious to see if there was much difference between the two weeks polled.

In Ontario, HD has a much closer race, with the Conservatives up a mere 4%- 40% to 36%. Some quick deduction provides another poor result for the NDP, but we don't have the exact figure.

In Quebec, HD doesn't seem to show any Conservative "revival". The Conservatives sit at 15%, which is actually lower than the 16% score a month ago. Outlier? It's possible, although HD does show a reduced Liberal percentage, now at 24%(30% last month), Bloc up to 41%.

Anderson says the Liberal trend is clear, whereas the Conservative score is more "volatile".

A better result for the Liberals in this poll, or maybe more correctly "less bad".

9 comments:

I read this as a softening of the CPC lead. Perhaps the euphoria is over. Add a few more days/weeks of CPC cheques and smiling MPs and the lead will continue to shrink. This kind of self inflicted wound goes right through teflon overcoats.

Polls schmolls.I'm in a riding where there's a byelection, we've got a decent candidate and the doorstep impression is good. No prediction of winning this seat that hasn't tipped Liberals since '68, but the obliteration that was '08 doesn't seem to be hanging about. I also see about 2-to-1 more Grit signs than CON signs -- but its early and signs mean nada in the whole scheme.These are just another poll for the media to turn to and bury real important stuff like cheque-gate, Afghani-handover denial, and fiscal mess. When the media starts out with the well-worn CON premise that "if the CONs did it, the Liberals did it too!" as they did this week, you can guess the fix is in. I don't seem to recall that mantra being used in 2006...

Kinsella nailed Tim Powers to the wall on cheque gate, "it's illegal, you broke the law" Not that the Reform Con Coalition Party has any qualms about breaking their own laws, let alone lying about anything they want to, the corporate media isn't going to do anything about it.

Steve: as for the polls, the polls by and large have told the same story since Stephen Harper came to power: the majority of Canadians don't like him, and don't trust him and never will. Get on with the vision-making, and leave Harper to the satirists. (who the liberals should be harnessing by the thousands, in every little corner of the country.

To the polls, the polls by and large have told the same story since Stephen Harper came to power: the majority of Canadians don't like him, and don't trust him and never will. If Canadians loved and trusted him, he would have won his majority by now. Face the facts, Canadians do not like or trust this man and he has given many reasons not to.The only Canadians that do is Albertans. THey would vote in a Sasquatch if he was wering the Con colors.

In 2008 in the MacLeod riding (north of Lethbridge) Ted Menzies got 35,328 votes, the Green candidate 4,161, the NDP 3,043, and the Liberal 2,703.

Clearly the Tories could have run an empty chair and still won this.

However, that's not the point. The Tories don't hand pick candidates, but prefer constituency nominations. So Ted Menzies is actually someone well respected and popular in the area. Unlike the Liberal's who prefer to drop in some "star" candidate (read "successful female","celebrity" or "insider".

If the Tories did what the Grits routinely do, their grassroots popularity would begin to drop.